Fuck You, I Don't Need Anything

by STRIIIIIIIDEEEEEEERRRRRRR

Essentially shameless fanon of Bro's life.

You were Bro.

You come out of nowhere. Not a single person you ask in state care can tell you where the fuck you're from, you or the ever-smiling puppet you call your friend.

You grow up almost alone. You're lost, and your world is Cal's red cheeks and soft body and how you can almost pretend this is what a hug is supposed to feel like. You're warm in his limp arms, and it's one of the few times you feel safe in this foster house.

You start school, are made fun of for the odd pigmentation of your eyes. You want nothing more than to hide, to hug Cal and take a nap, but "dad" makes you leave him at home.

You're out of that school before you know it, out of that house, and again your only acquaintance is your plush friend and the man in charge of placing you. You still have to go to school. You're carted off to an unfamiliar part of Houston, to a family with whiter walls and a cleaner bathtub. They buy you all new school supplies in your favorite color, orange, and send you to a nicer school, one where the kids don't laugh at you and the teacher doesn't stare as much.

Here, you meet a boy named Dennis, who sits next to you at lunch and tells you your eyes are cool and shares his Doritos and you think two things. One, that maybe Dennis isn't so bad. Two, that Doritos and being cool are things you'd like more of. You're friends from the time he compliments your eyes, to when he comes over and meets your parents in front of the cross in the hall and tell you to let them know if you need anything and you laugh at his jokes and you feel like you're supposed to feel when you're five and you're making friends.

You're best friends from the time you get each other dollar store shades ("So you won't keep your hair in your face all the time tryin' to hide your sweet peeps!") and a picture you worked forEVER on ("Like, at least twenty minutes, bro!") for your respective birthdays, through fifth grade graduation when Dennis high fives the principal instead of shaking his hand and you laugh harder than you probably should and your "parents" don't.

The year is 1988 and you think Dennis is just about the coolest dude you know.

Dennis comes to middle school with you and he teaches you about anime, Japanese cartoons, and you trade in your cracked and taped dollar store shades for a pair like Kamina's from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. You speak in choppy, incorrect Japanese to each other and you love every second because you're caught up in watching his mouth move and his thick accent when he talks and god if he were a girl you'd probably kiss him.

He shows you something called "yaoi," in your room way after you're meant to be in bed. It seems normal at first, and you can't piece together what it is from the few Japanese words you know, but soon the guy with blue hair is is kissing the other dude and then they're butt naked and your pajama pants are tenting and you're starting to realize that dudes are hot and your "dad" walks in and sees the screen and your best friend and calls his parents and you're so embarrassed and you're just glad you can see him at school because there's no way you're ever going to be seeing him at either of your houses again.

You miss his overnight visits in no time flat. You're made to focus on your studies more, and forced to go to church and listen to the speeches about salvation and what you should and shouldn't do if you're ever going to make it to heaven, and then you're forced to go home and listen to your "mother" talk about how she doesn't care if you're demonspawn, you'll make it if only you pray enough.

You finish the 8th grade at the top of your class and your "mom" doesn't let you wear your Kamina shades to it and you're too shy to copy Dennis' Elementary school move of high fiving the person handing you your diploma instead of shaking their hand even though you really want to. You avoid your parents afterward at the school's reception in the gym in favor of finding Dennis and he notices your lack of shades and compliments your eyes like he did in Kindergarten except now instead of "cool," he uses "pretty," and your face turns red and you stutter over your words a little but end up following him to the boys' locker room where he tells you he thinks you're rad as hell and you have your first kiss with your best friend in the sweaty, musty locker room in your nice graduation clothes. Right afterward, you don't know what to say, can't look him in the eyes, and he apologizes and you tell him it's fine and when you go back into the gym you can't place the weird feeling in your chest but you see your foster parents and Dennis is gone in the crowd of giddy middle schoolers by the time your "mother" gets you set up for an obligatory picture.

Your freshman year you resist violently the Christian upbringing that keeps you from your closest friends, you get a shitty tattoo of Cal from an acquaintance and you're still tripping when you come home far after the streetlights are on. You rebel hard when they force you into a chair and make you listen to Bible verses until the street lights go back off, sarcastically speaking over them with "hail Satan"s in your inebriated state, and you stay quiet when they force the shades off your face and drive you to church for the four hundred and sixty-ninth time and the pastor tries his damnedest to pray the Satan out of you. You're still quiet when you're allowed to leave and go home in the back of the car, and even quieter when you're packing a grocery bag with a change of clothes and situating Cal on your back and when you sneak out of the living room window. You stop being quiet the moment you reach the end of the street, muttering directions to yourself in the think maybe you talk to yourself too much, but you shove that thought to the side and make your way to the state care facility.

They reprimand you for running away, but you know just who to talk to to ensure that you're out of that home before many people can protest. The remainder of your belongings are out of the house early the next day, your former "mother" sprinkling holy water on you on your way out the door.

It's a few days before they find a new home for you, and when they do, it's obvious that they're only in it for the state money. There are three other boys here, none with any visible manners, and you decide that you're going to keep to yourself here. You have to share a bedroom with one of the older ones who remarks on Cal and you glare and he tells you that you can keep the room for yourself, he'll take the couch, thanks.

You start a new school the next day, and you don't know anybody and nobody knows you but you scare people off with your pointy sunglasses and spiked hair and scabbed over tattoo exposed on your upper arm. You attract a few girls with annoying hips and grabby hands and shrill voices exclaiming how much they simply adore bad boys and you just walk away from them because you have no clue what else to do with them. Your tattoo also attracts a boy named Dennis with dark skin and a heavy drawl and a smile you'd recognize in hell.

Dennis introduces you to Ron, and you're all friends by the time winter break happens and you trade gifts of anime cards and shitty drawings and Doritos. You have fun on the weekends all together in Ron's basement, and your parents don't care when you come home stoned, or if you come home after the street lights are on, or if you bring Dennis home with you, or if you make out in your bedroom with your best friend, and they don't care when he leaves as long as you do the dishes on Mondays through Thursdays.

Your freshman year, you make straight As and you get into Fencing Club and Anime Club and your best friend from Kindergarten and the sound mixers in the auditorium and your new parents don't care and frankly, you don't care about them.

Your sophomore year, you turn sixteen and you get a job at a gas station near your house and you don't think you've ever seen people be so horrible to each other. Dennis comes in every day, usually with Ron, and they buy Doritos and gum and frozen Mexican food during the slow hours until you tell them to leave because people are coming in. You do your simple homework behind the counter when you're waiting for something to happen, and you handle the abuse public workers on minimum wage get, and you go home after eleven at night to your own room (by right of creepiness). On some occasions, you find Dennis sitting on your bed waiting for you. You don't wonder when or how he got in there, you just lay your head on his lap and talk about the crazy people that come through and he tells you about the kind of crazy shit he and Ron did with their freeloading candy-ass selves and you both laugh at each other and shoot the shit about nothing in particular and make out in your work uniform until he informs you that he was supposed to be home at least ten minutes ago. After he leaves, you strip down to your underwear and fall asleep thinking about him.

It's the end of April by the time your work uniform starts making you sweat in the store, and it's the first day of May when the dirty motherfucking air conditioner breaks down. In Texas, a busted air conditioner is all but a death sentence. Ron and Dennis don't come in that day, but someone else who relates to your dilemma does. She comes in and buys bubble gum and chats you up like you're the only two in the store (which you are), and she tells you how her poor babies are just dying in the heat of their apartment while the air conditioner is broken, and she keeps a pleasant tone when she holds a gun towards your face and asks politely for the money in your register. (You understand, don't you, dear? A mother does what's best for her children.) You'd be lying if you said you didn't stare at the barrel of the gun first, half expecting it to go off in your face. You get past the gun hovering a few inches in front of your forehead, and you look into the eyes of the woman who calls you "dear" in a voice that could only be described as maternal, and you wonder if having a mother that cares about you really means all this. You stay calm as you reach up toward the gun she's holding and she looks surprised and looks like she's losing her cool like she hasn't since she arrived. You put the gun down on the counter and tell her you're pretty handy with a wrench and you'd be glad to drop by and fix her air conditioner for her, no charge. She looks you exactly in the eye and tells you, like you're a child, to just give her the goddamn money before she shoots your demon eyes out of their sockets. You push the "sale" button to open the register and she snatches up the gun and hits you over the head with it, and she's crying and your hands are shaking as you hand her what's in the register and she runs out of the store, leaving her gum on the counter.

You're visibly shaken by the event, and you're given the rest of the day off for your trouble and a warning for not following procedure. You go home early enough that Dennis isn't there yet and you take your uniform off and sit on your bed in a wife beater and your underwear, basking in the air conditioning as you realize that maybe there aren't as many good people in the world as you thought. Tonight, Dennis lays his head on your lap, and you talk about the woman with the gun, and Dennis teases you about getting your ass handed to you by a lady and kisses the top of your aching head and you kiss him back and you take out your frustration on him by kissing him harder than you ever have, and you get on top of him like you saw in your anime porn, and you touch him through his baggy shorts and grab his ass and you want more but you realize you have no idea how it would work, so you stay like you are, groping at each other and rocking your hips together until you both come, Dennis groaning your name against your neck. Your head still hurts and normally you're not all that cuddly, even when you're making out, but you make an exception and lay your head on his chest and fall asleep much earlier than you normally do, listening to his heartbeat as it slows.

Your sophomore year, you grow up a little from the threat on your short life, and you don't gain any maturity from your sexual experience. Your foster parents still don't care, and most people that aren't Dennis and Ron don't care, and you make straight As and use your money from working to purchase an unbreakable katana and practice cutting wood with it outside when you're not busy.

Your junior year, you feel like nobody cares sometimes. Your counselors at school talk to you about college with monotones, say you have potential, but you can tell by the way they're shuffling papers and how they "hmm" at your responses that they don't actually care about you any more than the mud on the damn ground. You quit your job at the gas station when you learn it's closing down, but you've been messing around with sound mixers after school long enough to know something about that. You lie about your age to club owners around Houston, and you manage to get gigs on the weekends with better pay per gig than you got in a day at the gas station. You're out late on weekends and your foster parents wonder where you got the money for a set of turntables, but they leave you alone because one of the other boys has just turned 18, and he's out the door with a few of his things without a second thought. A few days later, you're stuck with a new roommate, a kid that looks like he's about twelve, and he's not scared when you glare at him or show him your shitty tattoo or dangle Cal over him when he wakes up in the morning, so you put up with him. He sort of looks up to you, which you think is stupid because you think you're a horrible role model. He does what you tell him, and stays out of the room when you have Dennis over. He asks about your box of condoms once, and you tell him he'll learn when he's older, but otherwise he's good about letting you have your privacy.

You save up enough from your cashier position to get a cheap pickup truck from an acquaintance at school. It's a faded pink and the girl is obviously trying to get brownie points with you, but she agrees to a pretty cheap price for a model that's only about ten years old. That summer, you use the truck to leave the city whenever you have time off. You go by yourself a few times to lie in the bed of the truck and stare at the stars on the side of the highway until things make sense, and with Dennis and Ron a few times to goof around in surrounding cities until early in the morning. This eats your gas (and money) pretty quickly, though, so you try not to waste trips. You are saving money for community college, after all. Your roommate doesn't seem to understand this, but you decide to let him figure it out on his own, and you even take him with you a few times when you leave to think on the highway way later than you should be. He starts calling you his brother, and you're okay with that. You tell him "bro" sounds cooler, and he giggles in an undropped, prepubescent voice and says that the title suits you.

Your junior year, you make straight As and get really good at hitting things with swords and beats, and you don't cuddle with Cal at night anymore, and you lose your virginity in a mass of sweaty skin that reminds you of Oreos, and you catch ironically. ("So, who's the girl in this thing, bro?" "You are, duh." "But I pitched! That makes you the girl." "Yeah, but I did that ironically.") You're both able to laugh at each other and you remember that, even if nobody else does, good ol' Den cares, and you make it without resorting to talking about your feelings or anything drastic.

Your senior year, you turn eighteen and the checks for you stop and "dad" sits you down and tells you you're on your way out. You place an approximation of the amount of money they were receiving from the state on the table in front of him and tell him you're staying for another month as you walk back to your room to get ready for the gig you have tonight. He doesn't question it and doesn't bother you about leaving again, so you assume you're taken care of for the time being.
You're on your way to your favorite record shop not far from your apartment, your favorite because the owner hits on you and gives you discounts even though she knows you're gay, and you think, "Damn, that sure is a giant hole in the ground." The crater is still smoking and you look down into it, and you see this baby staring up at you with red eyes that remind you of your own, and you feel a strange connection to it that scares the hell out of you. You can't take care of a kid, you have no clue what to do with it.

You run.

Dennis doesn't buy the story one bit. ("A baby just fell outta the damn sky? Damn son, guess I'm lookin' at the next Virgin Mary.") He looks hurt and shuts the door in your face and you punch the wall next to the door and walk away. You suppose he didn't care for you all that much, and you don't cry, you don't fucking cry, you absolutely do not fucking cry.

Your senior year, you get fed up with nobody fucking caring and you throw all your stuff in your shitty junk car ("Bro, where you goin'?" "Leaving, kiddo.") and you drive to the tallest building you can see and you throw cash on the counter and you write your personal information on some forms and you guess you're just about on your own now. You feel like your heart has gone on vacation when you call Ron to help you move some of your shit up in the elevator, the adrenaline rush you used to move it onto your truck long worn off, and after your turntables are in the two room apartment and Ron leaves, you lay on the floor and you hug Cal and take a nap like you haven't in years.

You're not ready to be a father.

But you pick this kid up anyway, and you look into his eyes and your nonexistent heart starts leaking through your ribs and you use this kid you found in the wreckage of your favorite record shop to wipe it up.

(You pick up the horse he's sitting on, too. You're pretty sure it was crushed by the impact.)

You gently place the pair of pointy shades Dennis gave you in middle school on his round face, having long since replaced them with a larger pair.

Your senior year, you stop going to school to take care of this space baby and the old lady from downstairs to watch him when you have gigs because she brought you food when she learned you moved in and she said it was alright to let her know if you needed anything. While you won't admit that you need her, she seems to understand and happily takes him when you have places to be. You check out a book from the library about how to make things out of horse skin, and you spend your free time for a few days using your resources to make a bib for Dave, so as not to spend any of your cash on frivolous bullshit.

He calls you "Bro," and you call him "Dave."

You don't know the first thing about taking care of a baby, but you take notes when the lady from downstairs lectures you about it and shows you how to change a diaper and tells you where to buy blender-ized vegetables and shit. You like to think you do a pretty damn good job of it, too, when it comes to be your turn.

You're getting the hang of falling asleep in the shower when you come home, of wiping shit off his ass while he stares as you at four in the morning, of picking him up from Ms. Willoughby's apartment at similar times. You don't need sleep, or school, or Dennis, you just need to keep doing what you're doing and make sure Dave has a home and someone there that gives half a shit about him without trying to exorcise him.

He comes while you're spooning food off of Dave's chin and into his mouth. You glance at the sky outside and realize the sun's starting to come down, and you answer the slow knocks at the door with Dave on your hip like a woman, and Dennis looks surprised at first, then he laughs at this baby wearing pointy anime shades and asks who's it is and you tell him he's yours and he stops laughing and he looks at the ground and tells you he saw the meteor in the record shop, and that maybe the world is just crazy sometimes and that maybe you weren't lying and you realize halfway through him talking that he's sloshed and slurring his words and you stop looking at his bloodshot eyes and thinking that he's lost sleep over this in time to catch "Are we shtill a thing or?" (It's never "relationship." It's always "a thing.") and the smell of beer that comes with the breath it's on. It hurts you to do it, but you shake your head, and you don't look at him when you do. He extends a fist, and you hear "Bros?" and you don't say anything back to that, but you meet his fist with yours and tell him to go home and sleep off the booze.

About a week later, you're gearing up to give this kid a halfway decent Christmas, and since you're pretty sure his favorite thing is apple juice, you stock up on that mostly. You get him a few small things for him to unwrap, and you're trying to teach him how to say different words ("Nose. Hands. Solar plexus.") when there's a heavy knocking on your door followed by something that sounds like giggling from a little girl and you wonder if there are kids from down the hall throwing things at your door but when you open it you see an old guy with an overbite and innocent eyes carrying a black haired girl who looks like she's Dave's age and he knows your name and how long you've had this kid and he tells you things about yourself like you don't already know them and he tells you things about Dave like it's new information and he tells you he's had similar cases and is actually is new information. He tells you vivid stories in an antiquated jargon filled with anachronisms and implausible-sounding bullshit, like you came from a meteor just like he did, and how his sister did, and how a girl from New York you've never heard of did and how Dave did, and Jade ("That's her name! Isn't she just cute as a junebug?") and the other girl's daughter and how he's expecting another boy to any day now. He tells you you're meant to take care of your respective kids, to raise them right so they can play this game, and he tells you all this while Dave shares his juice with the guy's granddaughter, and you hate him. You hate how simple he makes it all sound, you hate the worn expressions on his stupid face, you hate how he knows what's going on and exactly what to do and how he can just pick Dave up and make him stop fussing and you want to punch him but Dave clicks with Jade so well and he knows and you don't want him to leave quite yet for all those reasons. He doesn't understand in the same way Ms. Willoughby does, doesn't try to comfort you, doesn't even explain how he knows everything he does and you think he's probably batshit insane, but you look at Cal and Dave in his horse bib and you realize you probably are, too. You make him coffee in hopes that the caffeine will give him a heart attack, and you tell him that and he laughs and tells you he's got too much spunk left in him for that and he proves it to you when you bite him and fuck him and he still doesn't leave. He stays the night, and Dave and Jade sleep in Dave's crib, and he sleeps in your bed, and you sleep on the floor next to the crib out of spite. You wake up with Dave's whining around nine the next morning and they're gone. You change Dave and go to the kitchen to make breakfast but you don't, because there's already a tray of fruity muffins out and a bottle of apple juice and a note with a name and a phone number on it and what looks like about five thousand dollars in cash. ("Let me know if you need anything!") What the fuck is it with old people and asking you if you need anything, anyway.

You put the money on top of the fridge for Dave. Just in case.

You're on "that" part of the internet before there's even much of an internet. You invest in a computer and a cheap webcam and check out a few how-to books at the library and you make a gaudy, generic-looking website that you're not exactly proud of. Cal's finally working for his keep, you guess. You're very careful not to produce content when Dave's around. When Ms. Willoughby asks about your new source of income, you use a few choice euphemisms before she stops you and tells you she understands that you do what you have to to get by. You talk to each other while Dave plays with her tiny ratdog, and before you know it you're spilling your life story and she's patting your back and it's the first time you willingly remove your shades in years. She rubs your back and when you take off your hat, you feel vulnerable and soft and you hate it but you can't stop, and she doesn't react to anything you're saying from the exorcism to the fact that you've had sex with a dude or that you said you found a baby in a crater. The sun is up by the time you finish, and you realize one of your cheeks is wet and the old lady that smells like soap and macaroni dabs at it with a licked tissue from her purse ("You poor dear, just let me know if there's anything I can do for you, alright?") and it sounds different coming from her than it did from Grandpa Harley. She's likely the nicest person you've ever met, and you think this is what a mother is supposed to be. You thank her more than you've ever thanked anyone in your life, and that's all you can do, and that's enough for her. You don't leave right away because Dave's sleeping on the floor, clinging to the dog.

You start him young, and you realize early that this kid is fucking amazing in terms of clinging to you.

You put a stop to that. You don't want him getting attached.

Your little internet biz picks up, and you're able to afford a larger apartment, like the one on the roof. Your stack on the fridge fills your humongous, Sam's Club-sized pickle jar quickly these days, and you're able to afford nicer turntables to practice for your gigs and felt for your business and you think you're probably alright now. Things are getting easier.

You shove a sword in his hands as soon as he's taller than one, and you go easy on him at first. You're getting better at this along with him, but you take your level down so that he's constantly receiving the notion that he's just below you in terms of skill level. You never let him have anything from you when you're fighting, you make him take it from you, but once he accidentally slices his leg, and you can't stand to see him crying and you immediately cave and take him to the hospital. ("Come on, I'll carry you. Stop crying, dude. You're fine.") Luckily, it's not a deep cut, but you don't have health insurance and the bandages cost you what you would have considered a small fortune a few years ago. You're questioned about how it happened and Dave stays quiet like you taught him to and you feel so guilty but you make something up and you spend the next week coddling the hell out of him.

He's ten when he first draws blood from you, and he seems surprised that you have anything to bleed out. He drops his sword and you put your hand on his shoulder and you maybe smile a little because you are so fucking proud of him. Not that you'd ever tell him that. Instead, you get him a new camera for his birthday and your old turntables that you bought with money from the gas station where you were held at gunpoint once and Dennis gets him a Dorito cake and talks about how Dave once asked if you were married. He acts like a little kid for the first time in forever and you teach him how to use the turntables and you and Dennis and Ron all get snockered over Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and you're about to put on this Batman movie but Dennis falls through a door and lands on his thumb and he and Ron miss the rest of Dave's party on account of Ron trucking Dennis' bawling candy ass girth to the hospital. So you spend the rest of the day with just Dave and you end with a strife on the roof and you're pretty sure you're at least a better "father" figure than any your shitty foster care provided for you.

When he's thirteen, three packages come in the mail for him. One's green with no return address, one's purple with an address from New York, and the other one is blue with an address from Washington. You don't ask where they came from but he opens the blue one before he opens anything else, even the ones from you, and he replaces the shades you gave him when you found him with Aviators that apparently touched Ben Stiller's weird, sort of gaunt face at some point. He tells you they're ironic, but you don't think he really understands the meaning of the word quite yet, seeing as how he's not using the word correctly and it's kind of an abstract concept, but you touch fists over it anyway and you leave him alone to type away on his computer over the other boxes on his desk because he's making friends and you want him to have all the love you didn't at his age, even if it's coming from people you've never met and even if you can't give it to him, at least not out loud.

A few months later, he plays the game.

The year is 2009 and your shit's about to get wrecked and you know it, but you spend the day fucking around with Dave anyway, and you think it's almost sad in a stupid kind of way.

You have shit to prepare for today. You locate the meteor in the sky that Harley's mapped out for you, slice the fucker in half before it can reach Dave, and once you're in, you don't stay with the "group" of other guardians that you know Harley's heading, and you leave Dave to his own devices. You wander around on your own, and you fight a bunch of black-shelled guys and you think this one with a spade symbol on him might be your match, but the fight ends before anyone can win. You walk around for a while, and you find your way to another planet, this one much cooler and less on fire than the one you arrived on, and you think about how the world just ended. Ron and Dennis are probably dead. Ms. Willoughby is dead. Your foster parents are dead. The kid that first called you "bro" is dead. You don't let yourself feel anything and you hope you raised Dave well enough for this.

The next time you see Dave, he's orange and has wings and by the time you realize you're on your way out, it's all you can do to protect him from the black dog man with the spade symbol and as you're laying on the ground with your heart leaking onto the blue earth, the fucker takes your shades and you think about your life, about old man Harley, about Ms. Willoughby, and about Dave, and the woman with the gun at the gas station, and your foster family that tried to have you exorcised, and you wonder where Cal went, and you think about Dennis and his broken thumb, and